Flopped the Nuts

At 9pm on Tuesday nights, the TiVo tends to record Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. I’m not a fan. Sure Ice-T and Belzer are cool, but I get no kicks watching stories about rape and child abuse. Whatever. Not the point…

So, I hopped on the Compy 386 and putter about for a while. After not-too-long-at-all, I decide to play a little poker — my home game is on this Thursday and I can stand to look at some cards, right? I end up buying into a $6 10-seat sit-n-go on Party Poker (which has a snazzy new interface these days!)… the speed variety. These speed SnG’s have their pros and cons. I’d usually prefer a regular pace, but fine. It’s fine, really.

That said, the fact of the matter is I bombed two “regular pace” SnG’s last night (The Wife has been working evenings…), so this is probably a good thing. I also figure I should distract myself a bit, so I fire up the internet backgammon. Good times.

Internet backgammon and no-limit poker are not the best of mental bunkmates, so really I end up playing backgammon and occasionally reacting to my cards. This, it turns out, is a good stragety for me right now. I don’t end up playing the poker as tightly as one might think, but I certainly didn’t play a lot of hands. A few of the hands I did play with the backgammon in the wings turned out to be good earners, though.

20/40 blinds:
Balance 2440, bet 160, collected 680, net +520 K♣ 8♦ = a pair of eights — K♣,T♠,8♦,8♣,7♥
30/60 blinds:
Balance 3330, bet 620, collected 1510, net +890 J♥ T♣ = a pair of jacks — Q♣,J♥,J♠,T♣,9♦
100/200 blinds:
Balance 5320, bet 2080, collected 4260, net +2180 J♠ K♥ = four of a kind, jacks — K♥,J♠,J♥,J♦,J♣
Balance 7352, bet 1232, collected 3264, net +2032 J♥ J♣ = two pairs, jacks and eights — J♥,J♣,T♣,8♠,8♦
300/600 blinds:
Balance 8342, bet 1800, collected 4200, net +2400 5♠ Q♠ = a pair of queens — A♣,K♠,Q♠,Q♥,9♠

At this point I have a slim lead over one player and we are dominating the other two players at the table. I get dealt J♠, K♠ in the big blind and call a minimum raise from the second place player. Board comes J♥, 2♣, T♥ so I bet 1430 and they call. Interesting. Turn is 6♣, so I go all-in for 5712. They fold and I earn 2930 putting me well in the lead with 11272 in chips.

Soon after, I end up with a chip balance of 13372. Sweet!

A pair of fives held up against the third place finisher’s all-in with 4♠ A♣ to gain me 3299, putting me at 16671 versus just one player with 3329.

Then my favorite hand treated me right (for a change, it’s not a good hand… like, ever…) twice in a row:
ItsAllJake (big blind) [ K♣, 9♠ ]
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 3♠, K♦, K♠ ]
ItsAllJake balance 19196, bet 2425, collected 4050, net +1625

ItsAllJake (small blind) [ K♦, 9♥ ]
Big blind goes all-in; I call.
Big blind has [ A♥ 2♦ ]
** Dealing Flop ** : [ K♥, T♥, 3♥ ]
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 3♦ ]
** Dealing River ** : [ 6♣ ]

Ta-da! Jake’s the big winner. Twenty five whole dollars, son.

Yeah!